You know, I was musing on the "Universe as Matrix" idea a while back, and I came to some interesting conclusions.

I realized first that, given sufficiently attentive creator(s), any attempt to prove that the Universe was a simulation must inevitably fail. Because if if such a proof were found, the proverbial Dark Lords could simply pause the sim, patch out the error that revealed the discrepancy, and roll back to before it was revealed. Similarly, proof that we weren't in a Matrix should be equally impossible, since any evidence that proved the impossibility could simply be falsified by the system to maintain the illusion.

At this point my train of thought went on to a different track: if we did know that we were living in a simulated universe, what should we do about it? After some pondering, I concluded that we would have spent all of our existence living in the sim anyway, so I wouldn't see much need for massive upheavals of human life. And if the Dark Lords were indeed trying to enforce a "realistic" simulation, then attempting to communicate with them would be fruitless, since they would not respond. But...

For whatever reason, the creators would have created this universe. It seems to me that if you were going to create a universal simulation, you would do it because you wanted to see what would happen inside. And we humans have a rather strong attachment to existing, so we should try to continue that state of affairs as far as possible. Therefore, in this scenario, every human being would have a solemn duty to make the world as interesting as possible.

It was at that moment that I realized that I had created a religion.